Buck stops with me, but we'll bounce back as one

EVIN Wilkin says he would have had no complaints if AFC Telford United had sent him packing following relegation from National League North.

- CHRIS DUNILAVY

Sacked by Brackley Town in September, Wilkin arrived at the New Bucks Head a fortnight later and was asked to rescue a dismal campaign that had yielded just one win in 13 games under predecessor Paul Carden.

But the 55-year-old failed to inspire any significant improvement as the Bucks went down with a month of the season to spare.

“I hold my hands up, we were brought in to do a job and we didn’t do it,” says Wilkin, who had spent the previous seven years at Brackley, where he won the FA Trophy in 2018.

“There’s no hiding from that. We were a relegated side. We finished bottom of the league. If Telford had wanted to get rid of me, they’d probably have been justified.”

As Wilkin says, however, the writing had been on the wall for some time. Telford have rarely challenged for promotion since tumbling out of the top flight in 2015, with several years of diminishing returns culminating in a dramatic escape from relegation on the final day of last season.

However, the division’s expansion to 24 teams and a four-fold increase in the number of relegation places left far less room for error, especially with a largely unchanged squad.

“So many things conspired against us,” says Wilkin. “A poor disciplinary record that we weren’t able to arrest. In juries at crucial times. We had high-profile players watching from the stands on too many occasions and very rarely were we able to field the same team in back-to-back games. It made consistency very elusive.

“But at the end of the day, the group that was assembled didn’t have the profile of a National North side. That’s just a fact.